Malaysia must further commit to solving mystery of MH370

It has been two weeks since Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished over the South China Sea with no indication of distress. Still, authorities don't know where the plane is or what happened to it. To make things worse, the country's chaotic lack of coordination in its response to the incident has made a growing number of people feel upset by the crash news, especially families waiting for a definitive answer to the flight MH370 mystery.

Inquiries have so far focused on assumptions that the pilot, co-pilot or someone who knew how to fly a plane deliberately diverted the flight hundreds of kilometers off its intended course from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Assuming such a theory has some substance, then why was the plane not properly tracked within Malaysian airspace? How come the military didn't properly track a flying object that had then become unidentified (i.e., the transponder had been turned off)? Why did the air force not scramble fighter jets to intercept the unknown flying object? Isn't there a procedure in tracking unidentified flying objects approaching and entering sovereign air space? Isn't there any satellite coverage over the Andaman Sea, Malacca Strait or the Indian Ocean?

The Malaysia Airlines flight lost contact with air control and went missing in the early hours of Saturday, March 8, more than an hour after it took off. We were initially told that the plane, carrying 239 passengers and flight crew on board, might have crashed into the Gulf of Thailand in waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, triggering a large international search and rescue effort, but to no avail. Today, frustration over Malaysia's handling of the incident is growing across Asia amid conflicting accounts surrounding the biggest aviation mystery in recent years.

On the one hand, the media and public have rightly pointed to the conflicting information released by Malaysian officials who have showed a serious lack of coordination in their response. A lot of people have been speaking off the cuff, and international media are reporting it as official news because there isn't any official agency you can go to for a statement.

I agree with your comments, overall. Sure, the Malaysian authorities have released conflicting, and frustrating information. But given the circumstances, they did their best. I wonder how many governments facing the same circumstances would fare better, some, to paraphrase a recent editorial in the Taipei Times, minimize, cover up and even black out information about disasters, earthquakes, etc., etc. The same regimes now demand "thorough and exact information," which to this date no one can provide. Which bring me to your statement regarding "our right to find a definitive answer to this tragedy." Not a right, but simply a wish for a desired outcome...which may bring some solace to the afflicted families of the victims. Ah, the sea is familiar with such lugubrious stories!